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Human as media. The emancipation of authorship Kindle Edition

4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 27 ratings

"With its concept of the 'viral editor' (now transformed, in our harsher decade, into 'viral inquisitor'), 'Human as Media' remains mandatory reading for anyone wishing to understand the disruptions of the digital."
– Martin Gurri, author of "The Revolt of the Public."

"Terrific book! Miroshnichenko is a media ecologist in the truest sense, analyzing the effect of technology on what it means to be human. This is an important book in a world where our apps are learning about us every time we touch a screen, and it is essential reading for anyone who has come to suspect that our civilization may have the medium and message reversed."
Douglas Rushkoff, author of "Present Shock," "Program or Be Programmed," and "Media Virus."

"The book is a blockbuster full of insights into the nature of communication, socialization, authorship, culture, politics and their connection to the Web. Miroshnichenko has extended McLuhan’s ideas to create totally new insights of his own."
– Robert K. Logan, author of "The Future of the Library: An Old Figure in a New Ground" (coauthored with Marshall McLuhan), "The Alphabet Effect", and "McLuhan Misunderstood: Setting the Record Straight."

Human as media. The emancipation of authorshipexplores the phenomenon of "emancipated authorship" and its effect on society.
Over 6,000 years of writing, there have been about 300 million authors – people capable of communicating their opinions beyond their physical reach. By 2013, thanks to the Internet, historically instantly, the number of authors has reached two billion.
Human as Media. The Emancipation of Authorship examines how formerly passive consumers of content, becoming themselves media, unavoidably engage in the evolution of media activism. Struggling for response and better socialization, the former audience gets increasingly affected by the opportunity of authorship and inevitably evolves from everyday idle talks, through "lolcats" memes, to civic discussions, and finally, to political activities.
The conflict between emancipated authorship and the old broadcasting media model of society stirs up antagonisms between developed and developing countries and intensifies social and cultural conflicts within developing countries.

Other books by Andrey Miroshnichenko (Andrey Mir):

  • Postjournalism and the death of newspapers. The media after Trump: manufacturing anger and polarization. (2020). The book introduced the notion of "postjournalism" into contemporary media criticism.
  • Digital Future in the Rearview Mirror: Jaspers’ Axial Age and Logan’s Alphabet Effect. (2024). The book explains digital tribalization through the phenomenon of digital orality – the effect of digital media that reverses print literacy and retrieves orality.

The author’s blog: human-as-media.com. Twitter: @Andrey4Mir

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00HLT7H0E
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Andrey Miroshnichenko (December 30, 2013)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ December 30, 2013
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 4810 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 102 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 27 ratings

About the author

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Andrey Mir
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Andrey Mir (Andrey Miroshnichenko) is a media scholar and journalist. He authored "Digital Future in the Rearview Mirror: Jaspers’ Axial Age and Logan’s Alphabet Effect" (2024), "Postjournalism and the Death of Newspapers. The Media after Trump: Manufacturing Anger and Polarization" (2020). “Human as Media. The Emancipation of Authorship” (2014) and other books on media and politics.

Blog: Human as Media. Twitter: @Andrey4Mir

Customer reviews

4.1 out of 5 stars
4.1 out of 5
27 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Reviewed in the United States on March 25, 2014
This is the tenth book by Andrey Miroshnichenko and maybe the most important one. Russian expert in the field of futurology, media and communications transforms his ideas of latest years that he expressed in articles and speeches into an engaging reading experience.
The main theme of the book is the emancipation of authorship. The spread of internet and development of network’s ecosystem (particularly, social media) allows everyone to publish anything that is accessible by everybody. Such means of creation change the creator himself: the possibility of publishing turns into the obligation. You do not really exist if you do not share with the world and do not receive the response (a holiday trip abroad isn’t complete without photos in Instagram).
The millions of people participating in sharing and publishing create the mechanism of ‘virus redactor’: a force that selects and spreads content that is filling your media agenda and social feeds of everyone. This process leads to the great changes of the society: the old institutes look clumsy and incompetent in comparison with rapid, evolving and interconnected networks of people. A large chunk of book is touching the aspect of political changes (with numerous examples): bloggers who start to express themselves in any way inevitably become the part of political life.
You probably won’t find a lot of practical recommendations here. This book is more like a textbook of the new discipline – but a really interesting one. The simple presuppositions of the author in an almost Socratic way lead to the vast and rather intriguing images of future. Near the end such images become somewhat bleak: Miroshnichenko concludes that the emancipation of authorship almost always provokes some form of reactive terrorism. But the book isn’t depressing: if you can understand and anticipate changes, the chaotic future becomes much more logical.
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Reviewed in the United States on July 22, 2014
This is a non-fiction book with a literary voice. Unfamiliar with the author, I found the writing to be smart, not just in the sense of big words, and the author used a lot of those, but in the sense that the information presented was well-thought out, presented in an intelligent manner, and backed up by experiments and news stories, etc. It is a slow read in the sense that it's very thought-provoking.. You either re-read certain lines until the full implications sink in, or you pause reading for the same effect. I think almost everyone in this day and age will find something in this book hits home, makes them think about their own life. I know as an author, I sure did. In fact, I found the book to have a rather somber tone or grim outlook. That being said, I'm reading a book of fact-based opinions and filtering them through my own worldview. So, that the book left me a tad depressed over the state of the world, in my defense, the author did begin the book by quoting Louis CK, "Everything is amazing right now, and nobody's happy." and ended the book, first line of the epilogue in fact, with "The price humankind will pay for the successes of computer technology will turn out to be high." I find that sad, and I can see it reflected in my own life. A worthy read if you want to do some deep thinking on the impact of technology on people, on what the author terms as the emancipation of authorship, the viral editor, and so on.
Reviewed in the United States on July 28, 2014
One of the first few lines in this book is “Everything is amazing right now, and nobody’s happy”. This was a real eye opener for me and as I continued to read through this book I learned the significance of media in our world and how people depend on it. How times have changed so drastically and progressively in the last year, 2 years, 5 years, and 10 years is extremely impressive… unless you are not able to accept that change. This book is broken down into 3 main parts that are equally written in an intellectual way that makes perfect sense in every way.
Reviewed in the United States on March 25, 2014
I am not a media expert by any means, more a layman. However I found this book approachable and fascinating, even as I do not agree with some points.

Some of the points that were striking and important for me (not sure if author would agree):

0) Detailed concept of "Viral Editor". I am somewhat skeptical about its alleged omnipotence, but the concept is interesting and worth paying a lot of attention to it.

1) about importance for politicians, professionals in humanities, sociologists to start paying attention to what technologists are doing (I am closer to technologists side). C.P. Snow talked about the split between sciences and humanities more than 50 years ago, and, according to Andrey, the problem is about to manifest itself in more ugly ways.

2) Technology is indifferent to social consequences, it is developing really fast and not enough attention is paid to them, because "everything is too amazing right now".

BTW, a creative method for solving global conflicts I'd approve of:

> It is very likely that if you were to throw ten thousand mobile devices out of a plane over North Korea, devices that were loaded with Facebook and connected to a satellite Internet provider, the regime would cease to exist far more quickly than it would for economic reasons.

In short, highly recommended. Even if you disagree with some of the points, you will know what you disagree with.
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